Owen smirked at me and gave me a mock salute, “May your journey be fruitful captain, godspeed.”
Wow that was cheesy. I rolled my eyes and waved my fingers at the rest of the men as I stepped out onto the patio, closing the door firmly behind me.
What had started out as a relatively sunny morning was quickly turning gray and foggy. If you looked out over the edge of the yard you could see the entire bay and the billowing clouds of fog that were beginning to finger their way ashore to cover the behemoth skyscrapers and the other buildings that made up downtown San Francisco. It was almost like the weather of the bay was reflecting the mood of our omega who I could see had taken residence in the detached verandah that sat on the edge of the yard. The original owners of this house had been notorious for spoiling their omega and the remnants of that could be seen throughout the house. The verandah was an omega’s paradise.
It sat on a flat piece of concrete with white flagstone stones adhered to the smooth surface. You had to step up into the verandah so it sat a bit higher than the rest of the yard and never flooded when it rained. The verandah itself was a sturdy wood structure that was fully covered by the same vines that covered the house and I could smell the scent of jasmine on the breeze. But the true star of the verandah was the round platform bed that was attached to the ceiling of the structure with sturdy chains. It had a twelve inch lip going all of the way around the base of the platform giving it the appearance of a wooden nest. Because that is exactly what it was—a wooden nest. Leon had considered taking it down when we purchased this place a few years back but it was damn comfortable so it stayed. We’d piled weather safe pillows and blankets inside of it and it was one of my favorite places at the Sausalito house.
Eloise was sitting in the center of the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest. She still looked too skinny for my comfort and I wished that I could just gather her into my arms and pretend like the party hadn’t even happened and Lincoln Sawyer was more of an idea rather than an actual living, breathing person. Unfortunately all of the wishing genies seemed to be otherwise occupied, so I just steeled myself to get a tongue lashing and stepped onto the verandah.
“Ric, I’m still incredibly angry with you all, so enter at your own risk.” Eloise’s back was to me as she stared out into the bay with stiff shoulders.
“I think I’ll risk it, permission to come aboard?” I joked, holding on to the chains attached to the bed to steady it from swinging in the cool morning breeze.
Eloise was silent for a minute and I was afraid she was just going to ignore me but she finally sighed and turned to look over her shoulder at me. Her brown hair was still wet from her shower and it was scraped out of her face in a loose ponytail and her face was clean of makeup.
“... I guess.” She finally said and scooted over so that I had a spot. I kicked off my tennis shoes and slid onto the bed, steadying myself on my knees as the bed swung lightly back and forth underneath us. Once I felt like it wasn’t going to dump me onto the ground I settled down next to Eloise and we stared at the ocean together.
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you about finding Lincoln as soon as we found him. I should have told you the second I found out.”
“Yeah you should have, Gage should have too. How fast did he find him anyway? I was too angry to listen to either of you that night.” Eloise asked.
“Oh he found it within hours of looking. That man is nothing if not efficient and if you haven’t already noticed, he’d do anything for you if you asked.” I pointed out to her. Gage had been even more silent and grave than normal over the past few days. I was pretty sure that he had barely slept between dealing with Dimitri Volkov in the basement of the Russo building and trying to figure out how we were going to present Link to Eloise again. We’d run out of ideas about the former and had just decided that we just needed to bring him to the house and see where things went.
Eloise pursed her lips and blew through her mouth making a little ‘pbbt’ sound as she thought about my words. “I know he would. I just wish you’d have been more transparent with me when you found out.”
“Me too.” I admitted, I should have knocked some sense into Gage’s giant head. But I guess we were all learning—all of this was new territory for us. “Hey, I missed you though.” I nudged her with my shoulder and was happy to see her lips curve into a smile.
Despite the fact that I was the one who had spent the most time with Eloise over the past three months, I still felt like I’d fallen behind my pack mates. Even now I could smell Dominic’s lemony scent on her skin and hair despite her recent shower.
“I’m also sorry. For keeping the information about Link from you—and also not being able to court you in the way that I wanted to. Time keeps getting away from me and I feel like I’m always busy elsewhere… it’s not that I don’t want to spend everyday with you, it's just…” I couldn’t seem to find the word I was looking for.
“You are our resident fixer.” Eloise supplied for me, slipping her arm through mine so that she could lean her head against my shoulder. “You can’t sit still and just be. At least not while people you care about need you. You do it so much that you lose track of the present for fear of what's going to happen in the future. I’m not a psychologist but I think people would call that OCD.”
I was surprised that she was able to explain it so easily. I’d always been needed by high-needs people. So much so that I spent more time making sure everyone around me was taken care not putting myself first and going with the flow of things as they came. That is, until I saw a certain omega dancing in the Swan Princess ballet.
“You seem to have me all figured out, eh?” I teased.
“I’m just observant. You never put yourself first. You never order food first or make your opinions known first. You even let everyone else go ahead of you when it comes to me too.”
Her voice was soft and I was afraid she was upset with me again. I gently moved so that I was kneeling in front of her and took her face into my hands so that I could look into her eyes when I asked my next question.
“Are you upset with me? Should I have pushed harder earlier?” Had I completely screwed myself over by waiting to make sure that everything was solved with the mole at the company and with her beta to make romantic overtures towards her?
But thankfully Eloise shook her head, “No. I think it just goes to show what a wonderful person you are—you need someone to look out and take care of you too while you take care of everyone else.”
My heart began to beat with anticipation, my mouth felt a little dry and I licked my lips so that I could ask my next question: “And would you like to be that person for me, Eloise?”
“Eric, I’d like to give you one of my firsts.” Eloise shifted until she was on her knees as well and we were kneeling in the center of the platform bed, her fingers slid around mine which were still cupping her face and she wove them through mine and brought both of them to her chest, “I have never told anyone that I loved them before—I’ve thought it but I’m a bit of a wimp when it comes to vocalizing it—but I just wanted you to know thatI love you. You changed my life Eric Zhao by bringing me to live with the pack and treating me with so much care, I’d never experienced that before you and I would have probably wasted away without you. ”
I didn’t wait to hear anymore from her and pulled her in close and kissed her. It was gentle at first but she eagerly responded to me, her little teeth latching onto my bottom lip and giving it a little tug. I wanted to whoop for joy at the fact that she’d told me that she loved me. I was lucky considering I had thought that I was going to be read a riot act for interrupting her earlier brooding.
“And I love you Eloise.” I whispered against her mouth and hugged her to my chest as tight as I could without hurting her, the sound of ocean waves surrounding us on the gently swaying bed.
34
The sound of whooping from the house was what broke Ric and I apart from our embrace. Owen was standing on the porch grinning as Leon shushed him from just inside of the house.
“It’s about time you got your shit together, Ric.” He called cheerfully, ever the hype man of our pack.
